Sprocket 2 : Momentum
Momentum doubt starting life as a precise definition in physics. Here it s equal tote mass times the velocity of a moving particle, and has the property the it is never lost. When one is truing to turn anything around or stop a fast moving particle (or when one crashes into another car) then it is momentum that does the damage or that needs to be overcome. Momentum is therefore the impetus for a things to carry one moving the way it is, and to resist any attempts to alter its path. This pig headed property that clearly in dears the phrase to political pundits and would be commentators everywhere: momentum is that property that ensures a political movement or a campaign carries on moving in the direction that it is currently moving; parties get more an more popular or campaigns build.
Momentum’s function is to impose a linear storyline upon an sequence of events. We are encourage to think of these events as if they must happen in a certain manner or way. Critical in this necessitating of order is a very complex relationship. Firstly there is the fact that humanity needs or desires linear temporality in order to make the unknown understandable. That is we need things to run in certain direction, to be ‘normal; so that we might easily inhabit the future. Secondly there is the linked point that humans actually have relatively little tools to understand a bafflingly complex world with. Key amongst those tools is of course experience. It is very hard o warp a mind beyond its experience. The temptation is therefore always and at every level to warp what one knows into new circumstances. Thirdly (and conjoining the last two points it is always a mistake to understand humanity as existing in isolation. Humans fees of and use other humans to think with, and do so constantly . To reach into the worry of a future is therefore also to open one to the minds of others and what they think or hope that future will be. This collectivist turns belief into a very potent force.],as my knowledge of your faith gives me confidence and makes me act different. The concept of social momentum is therefore defines between these aspects. T does not gear them up and make them work together, so much as in a single words talks all thee at once. To speak of momentum is therefore to speak of something necessarily slippery. One might start about talking about something that merely aids prediction but end with a statement about human mass psychology. Each of these separate aspects needs then to be identified, before the complex journeys between them, that the word momentum takes us, are considered.
The first aspect of momentum requires a straightening out of time: That is one speaks of momentum as one claims that history is going in one direction. And yet is very use implies that there was once another option. The linearity that it imposes is therefore of at very particular kid I is that linearity which once the campaign is over of the sporting event in finishes will compose the ‘story line’ of the event. The victor or a match or an election will appear predestined for the role after then event: or if not the entire event is pulls around that individual or that camping it becomes naturally the story of their triumph. The 1992 British election campaign became therefore ‘about’ John Major, or at least did so after he has really rather surprisingly one it. The future as it will become history is therefore always getting and warping the present. We remember narratives, even if we cannot live them (or cannot ad have any guarantee of their success).
Hence the deep problem of being any sort of pundit comes down to this. The pundit knows that almost whatever they as do will risk looking pretty daffy after the event. That is their commentary is always attempting to reach forward into that future which we will all eventually know and assume, and which is currently utterly hidden. Or to put it slightly differently, it is their role to mediate between the world of expectation and the real world of events: they must therefore shift though conflicting expectations, and attempt to ensure that whatever they say, whatever they predict actually reflects the actual outcome of events. The chances then of them looking daffy or saying the wrong thing (or only being half or sort of right) remain very high. The game of the pundit is therefore to attempt to predict that ;direction; that outcome In this game there are two very clear rules.
On the one hand the prediction business is tied to ‘events’. That is those point in a contest where the evictions about the outcome of the event suddenly shift: what will be will appear more or less east to predict, and the pundit game come more or less easy by contrast. However it is seldom of course quite this simple. The pundit is not innocent in this process. They (and we0 all look to and for significant event and do so constantly. They therefore do not simply watch a game or a political debate such as prime Minster’s questions), but rather see a sequence of potential significant events. These events are then ‘made’ into something them That is they take what they have seen, and feel to be significant and often run with that (and ignore the actual sequence of event which carries on regardless beyond the commentators studio, and there is of course always a tendency for these two to diverge.
On the other hand there is momentum. Momentum is the phrase then used by the commentators in their studios looking on, which reintegrates their expectation to the events. As their expectation some way or manner reflect what that which is happening in the events of the real world, the those events are said to have a certain momentum. These vents are then conforming to plotline and to expectation: they are dancing to the tune as it was predicted within the words of the pundit and onlookers.
Momentum is therefore the ‘property’ that the actual world is said to have when it appears to confirm the expectation of the world of the commentators As such it has two further properties. On the one hand as this continue to follow a certain apparent line, a certain trajectory or pattern, then that momentum is said to gather. That is the increased certainty in the minds o the onlookers, is said to actually be, as it were, a physical force in the event itself. the event (or sequence of events has then a momentum ;of its own’’ – it is following the lines of certainty in the minds of others, and confirming them, and (apparently) doing so off its own bat. Thus far therefore momentum is a gathering force, a the onlookers see their expectations increasing confirmed. On the other hand as event usually need not follow any pattern of expectation, such momentum (in direct contest o its physical counter part) can always evaporate and or disappear. The movement n event happens that does not configure history this way, and can form no easy part in the storyline being written the momentum ‘evaporate’, reality reasserts itself, and the game of open punditry resumes. Momentum is therefore a volatile and complex affair. It might always evaporate to do something rather unexpected.
The second type of momentum outlined above concerns a related but distinct facet of the human mind. As a rule(beyond science) all a human has to go on to understand the world is their experience, and the experience of others as they are related t them. The toolkit provided by such experience might be rich and diverse in itself, and yet it is always problematic and difficult to apply,, and is so for two main reasons. Firstly such a tool kit will be prone to abstraction The number f events or experience of course mind blowing (literally) and we must always navigate thought such richness by abstractions. We ten then to remember the world and think on it (and so o ac) from a rather abstract point of view. The world therefore might act in a certain individual events but we respond to those events as if they conform to types. Secondly the amount of experience n the mind or in the world is always limited. On is what one knows, and acts according to that knowledge. The genuinely new is therefore rather tricky to think or for a allow for we tend to respond to it as if it were somehow in our ken (we cannot in a sense to other).
Building on these points, almost every individual is rather limited in the number and kind of response they actual have to a problem. They act one way or another of another, or do not know what on earth to do We are not then ever really free to act, as we cannot even define a territory on which to base such an ’apparent’ freedom upon. We rather configure this freedom as the choice between one action or another or another, and that is all. Two things result from this last point. Firstly we have a tendency to allow ideas to run their course. If then we have a plan that plan will easily once enacted gather a momentum of its own I will become what must be done. O sees this rather clearly with polite schemes run by the government) or pilot programs (run by the BBC). These programme are ostensibly tests to see if a thing works or not. But they are not really anything so simple as that. Once the money has been spent setting out the test, and then planning how one will move to a second phase here the programme goes ’national it is very hard to stop the process unfurling. Not only would it cost far too much to step (or rather all the money spent so far would have been wasted) but also there much be a very good alternative (or at least a reason) to stop it. Merely the fact that it does not really works is never enough. It must be very very disastrous (or frankly criminal) to actually warrant being stopped, once this momentum has gathered.
Secondly any one political party will have a very limited set of ideas to apply to a given occasion. If one those ideas then appears at once point to be successful (say some of the privatization in the 1980’s) then there is a great tendency to apply that policy across the board. It is almost as if the relief of a politely party, that it has ;got something right; is enough to make that policy appear utterly applied across the board, and imposed upon a whole series of radically different circumstances., regardless sometimes of its appropriateness. And initial success (or an initial failure) of a policy therefore infuses an entire political system. It gather momentum, as politics and pundits immediately freeze onto their success, and clone it, in the hope that it will work or it does not the are at least seen by their public as doing something that can work (at least sometimes). If then this claiming works the opposition will eventually have to adopt it, and suggest their own ‘version’ of it, in the hope that its political success will rub off on them also A single policy can then easily become an utter dogma defining to politics of an epoch, if the momentum pulls right .The cloning of a success, is then as effective way of appearing to be a success to the voter (even if it is not good policy) and will therefore always be politically worthwhile (or will until a disaster, such as rail privatization strikes).
The final aspect of momentum is the weirdest. Humans are really porous to the expectation of other humans. If then one is performing and others are watching, the audiences' enter into the performance, and become a part of it. Performer and actor therefore enter into and become parties within a kind of dualistic monologue: each have their part to play, each say different things to the other, and yet what hey say in interlinked and a part of the same set of events. Expectation, like hard words matter: they rather easily become a fairly potent force within the world. Te result is then that any one performance will appear to ‘g; somewhere That is as the audience to a drama (political, sporting or scripted) witness the event and are caught up in it, their own prediction of the future (and the hopes or hates associated with those predictions) effect the performances of the actors involve. Moreover such as effect will tend to be one way. That is the performances (to the perceived performances) of the favoured actors will increase an those who are in disfavour decrease It takes a truly great actor in whatever field to turn such a tidal wave of feeling. Likewise it takes a real oaf to muff a surge of opinion in their favour. Both can be done, but run of the mill actors (politicians or sportsmen) are unlikely to do it. The collective belief of an audience has ten a real power in the world. I creates a real ‘momentum that is the collective conjuring of a specific future into being/
The role then of momentum is not to sort out these aspects, or gear hem up one with the other, but rather it rather creates a porous membrane of double speak between them all. When pundit or a politician uses the word momentum, one needs to listen very carefully to which they mean. As often as not of occurs they mean all them at once. The world is therein a way of punning a prediction with an effect of expectation and a lack of ideas, such that we cannot tell these different forces one from the other. A Policy becomes then naturally (and even what we ant); while punditry becomes a refection of society and bound up with the only option that there are. And finally the expectations of the public are caught with a set of polices and a series f prediction, and are not free to express themes is other ways or manner. Momentum therefore functions the sprocket which ensure expectations remain ‘reasonable’ and caught within predictable sees of future, and thereby of course ensure society carries pretty much as before (for good or evil).
